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For decades now, large parts of the game industry have been striving to create games that are more meaningful—games that can speak to the human condition and tell an impactful story that's deeper than "remember when I shot that guy?" At a DICE Summit presentation today, Twisted Metal designer David Jaffe made an impassioned argument that such efforts have been misguided, and a huge waste of the industry's time and resources.

Jaffe led off by clarifying that he wasn't against all kinds of storytelling in games—he had lots of respect for titles like Batman: Arkham City and Skyrim that allow for highly personal, player-created stories that can be as deep as a good novel. He also wasn't arguing for a return to the Atari 2600 days, where graphics were abstract and most titles didn't have identifiable characters or environments at all.

But Jaffe did argue vociferously against "games that have been intentionally made from the ground up with the intent and purpose of telling a story or expressing a philosophy or giving a designer's narrative." Because no matter how hard we want to fight it, Jaffe said, games just aren't meant for this kind of storytelling.

He brought up Saving Private Ryan, and director Steven Spielberg's stated desire to make the famous Normandy Beach scene to be as close to a documentary as possible, with none of the usual movie trappings. It's a powerful choice that lets the viewer filter the scene through the historical context of their knowledge and their life, Jaffe said. But in a game that actually places you in D-Day, Jaffe said, the only thing you're really able to think about is, "How the fuck do I get to that rock? How do I get to the exit?"

Jaffe thinks the industry obsession with telling grander stories started in the early '90s, when CD-ROM and consumer-level 3D technology allowed for cinematic camera angles and voice acting. At that point game makers started to get "seduced by the power and language of film" he argued, thinking that "because they started to look like movies... they should feel like movies."

But in chasing movies, games lose something that's unique to the medium, Jaffe said. The biggest successes in video games—titles like Modern Warfare's multiplayer, Skyrim, Guitar Hero, and Angry Birds, make a huge impact without ever pushing a developer-driven story on the player. The game industry should respect the success we've had in entertaining the world, he argued, and stop trying to force more from what has historically been the worst medium for expressing complex narrative ideas.

"It's like the world's best chef, instead of working in a fine restaurant, decides to start working at McDonald's," Jaffe said of the constant effort to try to force strong developer-directed narratives into games. In other words, if you think you have something significant to say about philosophy or human nature, stick with the media that have proven they're suited to imparting that message effectively.

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Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl